Amid armed Iraqis, US struggles to protect

BAGHDAD -- ''We got a firefight! Firefight! C'mon, we need help!''

US Army Staff Sergeant Brian Dommell's patrol had only just left US headquarters when an American soldier shouted 200 feet away. Rarely had Iraqi gunfire come this close to base. Dommell and his six men raced into a nearby neighborhood, flak jackets tight around their chests, not sure what they would find.

At the dead end of the residential street, Abdul Kareem Jabar lay face down in the dirt, his hands wired behind his back, an armed Army private hovering by his side. A gunfight between Jabar and a Kurdish militant had caught another US patrol in the crossfire; there were no American injuries.

Such firefights are only growing worse in Iraq, where millions of guns are still on the streets and US commanders say the war has not ended.

Yesterday, US soldiers began enforcing a new ban on automatic weapons. In the afternoon, attackers hurled a grenade and sprayed gunfire at a US convoy as it patrolled north Baghdad. At least two American soldiers were wounded, and one Iraqi civilian was killed, soldiers on the scene said.

Despite the 7,000 Baghdad police officers back at work, American soldiers like Dommell are still the only real crime-fighters in the chaotic capital city, and expect to be for months to come. It is proving an increasingly dangerous assignment, especially since relatively few Iraqis appear inclined to hand over weapons peacefully. Yesterday, police stations across the city reported only a few dozen men voluntarily giving up their arms.

''We're out here every day, and it's dangerous,'' said Dommell, a soft-spoken Buffalo native, as his patrol moved through central Baghdad on Saturday evening. ''But we're the only protection these people have.''

At the 20 or so police stations that have reopened in the city, Iraqis are spending more time trying on their new, American-issued uniforms than nabbing looters and arsonists. In the New Baghdad neighborhood, Iraqi sergeants still struggle over a city map to find a part of town only a few miles away. Most jail cells sit empty, the bomb-damaged walls too easy an escape route.

''We write down reports of rapes, carjackings, but we can't solve many of them yet,'' said one New Baghdad sergeant, Dhaffar Muhammad. ''We did solve a murder last week. There were a lot of eyewitnesses.''

Lieutenant Colonel Ryad Abdul Kareem, the station's commander, says Baghdad is relying on US soldiers for security because many veteran Iraqi officers are staying home over a lack of salaries.

''If the Iraqi police really wanted to protect and defend this country, it would not be hard,'' Kareem said. ''But many officers are waiting for a new government, to see what happens in Iraq.''

From prisoners of war to people held on misdemeanor-level charges like theft, most Iraqis apprehended in the capital are held in a US detention center at Baghdad International Airport that operates under fortress-style security. There have been a few riots recently, say officials at the airport, who plan to separate the Iraqis by category. But the option of holding petty criminals in Baghdad remains elusive because of the lack of jails and officers.

''A couple'' of prisoners ''snuck out of windows here, so we closed it down,'' said Army Captain Steve Caruso, who works at Baghdad's Police Academy, where some makeshift jails are used. ''They grow 'em smart here.''

Sergeant Dommell's two-hour patrol, accompanied by a Globe reporter and photographer, experienced the threats and uncertainty faced by US soldiers who are deployed on virtually every other street. The First Armored Division 2-6 infantry unit is at the front lines of a new kind of urban warfare, in which every person on a rooftop is a threat -- and they are ubiquitous -- and even excited children who mob the US troops with thumbs-up signs are viewed as possible decoys or distractions sent by gunmen.

The new weapons ban is especially tricky to enforce for US patrols, who are torn between enforcing the rules and allaying Iraqi anger over being disarmed.

Minutes after Jabar was led away by some of Dommell's fellow soldiers, the sergeant was faced with three conflicting versions of the Kurd-Iraqi firefight -- the Kurd fired, Jabar fired, or they struggled. After calling in to a superior, Dommell ordered a search of the Kurd's two-story house for his gun clip and other weapons. Inside, a child cried upstairs as soldiers combed mattresses and wardrobes with a ''We're here to help'' gentility, finding nothing. Dommell thanked the Kurd's sister-in-law there, Afra Rahra Ali. Ali would not name her brother-in-law, but urged the Americans to come back often.

''We want you to take whoever harms us,'' she said.

Outside, one soldier said the magazine's disappearance is no surprise to US patrols. ''The shooting'll be under investigation,'' he said. ''They're always under investigation.''

The seven men set out on foot for the Iraqi Ministry of Information, Saddam Hussein's former propaganda center, where the glass chandeliers have become a magnet for looters. Along the quarter-mile route, scores of children materialized from an apartment building, shouting ''Hello, mister!'' and ''Go USA!'' A few soldiers slapped them five, but Dommell eyed the youngsters warily and watched the apartments' windows.

At the ministry, the patrol found a gate forced open that only a few hours earlier had been wired shut and barricaded. ''The looters are back!'' said Sergeant Emmanuel Flores.

In the shadows of the burned-out building, soldiers stumbled across a 23-year-old Iraqi, Yasser Hatim, who said his mother, two brothers, and sister had been squatting upstairs. A patdown quickly turned up a sharpened 6-inch knife on Hatim's belt.

''We're taking this,'' Dommell said.

''But it's all we have to protect ourselves,'' Hatim said, ''against the men who come at night.''

Dommell shook his head. ''You'll have to find a new weapon.''

The previous night, Dommell's men had come under close fire from a person believed to be on a rooftop, but Saturday evening's patrol ended without further violence. Dommell said the guns on the street, combined with the anger over the new weapons policy, make every day a wait-and-see adventure. ''There's no logical way to disarm them,'' he said of this nation of 25 million, ''but we have to find these guns.''